Details

Get ready to develop your own personal model of leadership. Through a study of cutting-edge ideas from business practice and current research, you gain an understanding of the value of elevating your vision above daily execution, and realize the difference between management and leadership. You can become a “true leader!” If you are prepared to stretch your thinking and shift your actions, you will find valuable insights and experiences in this senior leadership program. The highly effective leader’s tools, such as purpose and shared vision, powerful narratives and effective communication, are subtle. They are necessary if you are to move from leading one’s self and others to cultivating the climate and environment in which others can become leaders.

The fee covers all program materials, program-related meals and housing in a private room at the Inn at Darden for the specified program dates. 

This program counts as one week toward earning a Certificate of Specialization.

Audience

The typical participant already operates as an effective manager, and may be wrestling with the challenges of leading more diverse, independent and creative organizations. She/he is currently a general manager, head of a major functional area or a partner in a professional services firm. Participants are ready to move from controlling daily activities to creating new opportunities.

Benefits

• Actively draft a plan for advancing in the role of leadership.
• Engage in innovative learning, including a “change walk” to write your own story.
• Develop your own series of leadership principles.
• Cultivate a set of personal principles about human behavior in business that can shape your actions as a leader.
• Gain a clear view of your own leadership model and personal principles through executive coaching using the TILT 360™ Leadership Predictor tool.
• Using a theater experience, develop creative and collaborative skills necessary for true leadership.

This program counts as one week toward earning a Certificate of Specialization.

Topics/Themes

The curriculum combines theoretical study and business history with personal explorations, showing how strategy and vision grow out of personal experience and values, while helping you craft your own visions. Overarching themes include:

• Authority and Innovation — Helping People Do the Right Thing
• Identifying Personal and Organizational Opportunities; Integrating Personal and Organizational Visions
• Strategy and Leadership: Where Do They Come From? Theories Around Emergent Strategy and Leadership Aspirations and Opportunities
• The Importance of Purpose and Values
• Ways Leaders Lead Leaders

At-a-Glance

• The Leader’s Challenges. The week begins with the study of a leader in action, recognizing and addressing organizational and personal challenges, as well as the interactions between them.
• Leaders and Managers. As a group, address the difference between management and leadership, and explore the need to reset both personal leadership and organizational strategies in order to move forward.
• Leadership Mapping. Participants tell their stories, speaking to the following: Where am I? What are my core values and aspirations? Where do I want to go/what type of leader do I want to be? What do I think I need to address/change to get there?
• The Organization. Concurrently, we will examine the organization’s values, history, stakeholders and purpose, including an explanation of the genesis of historical inflections (i.e., what was it about the combination of external context and leaders’ internal dynamics that made certain occurrences happen).
• Designing Your Leadership Path. Engage in exercises on perception, gather information on where you are on the leadership spectrum and identify what gaps and skills need attention. 
• Learn/Do. Discovering your purpose. Through an exercise or simulation, gain understanding of the extent to which you are leading vs. managing.

Special Feature

Faculty

R. Edward Freeman
University Professor; Elis and Signe Olsson Professor of Business Administration; Academic Director, Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics

David L. Newkirk
Advisor to global corporations on issues of strategy and leadership.